The subject matter herein relates generally to connectors and, more particularly, to connectors that communicatively couple circuit boards with one another.
Server systems may include several blade server circuit boards that are mounted to a backplane board. In some known server systems, the blade server circuit boards are loaded into a server box in a parallel relationship. For example, the blade server circuit boards are loaded into the server box through a front face of the box so that the blade server circuit boards are approximately parallel with respect to one another. Some known server systems include a motherboard located along a bottom side of the box. The motherboard includes connectors that mate with the blade server circuit boards such that the motherboard and blade circuit server boards are oriented perpendicular to one another. These connectors mate with the blade server circuit boards in directions that are perpendicular to the loading direction of the blade server circuit boards. The known connectors require twisting or rotation of one or more components of the connectors to mate the connectors with the blade server circuit boards. These connectors may be fairly complex and involve several interconnected components working together. If one or more components fail or becomes misaligned with one or more other components, the connectors may be unable to mate with the blade server circuit boards.
For example, the connectors may include a plate or connector interface that moves away from the connector and toward a blade server circuit board. The plate or connector interface includes terminals that mate with corresponding terminals on the blade server circuit board. The connector interface abuts against the blade server circuit board in order to mate the terminals with one another. But, if the connector interface is misaligned with the blade server circuit board, the terminals of the plate may be unable to mate with the terminals of the blade server circuit board.
Thus, a need exists for a connector assembly that includes a connector interface that is able to mate with circuit boards that are misaligned with, or angled with respect to, the connector interface.